Truemors
My review:
The most anticipated movie of 2008, Australia depicts an aristocrat from England Lady Sarah played by Nicole Kidman who inherited herds and lands in Australia therefore taking a journey to the continent "down under" to check on the well being of her estate and at the same time her errant husband that unexpectedly expire. Lady Sarah left behind her more than England itself; comforts and standing in society shall be replaced by discovery of an unknown land to adventure and then ultimately love. Realizing that her inheritance had been a subject of interest to a tycoon in this story, Lady Sarah confronts the tycoon and found herself to be the protector of her land and Nullah a half white and half aboriginal boy who will be subjected to an uncertain life and unbringing and thus absorbed the change in her surroundings, the key events that will form the modern Australia, from the child's point of view. Shortly after, she became involved intimately with Drover the adventurer played by Hugh Jackman and their relatioship turned platonic thereafter, worthy to be compared to Rhett Butler-Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the wind; fiery and unashamed passions. Lady Sarah found herself irresistably falling in love with her new home exposing parts of herself that she never knew existed, welcoming the change and adventure to her once predictable and monotonous life. The backdrop to the story is of a time short before the WW2 in Northern Territory of Darwin in Australia.
Baz Luhrmann’s continent-size epic, “Australia,” isn’t the greatest story ever — it’s several dozen of the greatest stories ever told, “The African Queen,” “Gone With the Wind” and “Once Upon a Time in the West” included. A pastiche of genres and references wrapped up — though, more often than not, whipped up — into one demented and generally diverting horse-galloping, cattle-stampeding, camera-swooping, music-swelling, mood-altering widescreen package, this creation story about modern Australia is a testament to movie love at its most devout, cinematic spectacle at its most extreme, and kitsch as an act of aesthetic communion. A maximalist, Mr. Luhrmann doesn’t simply want to rouse your laughter and tears: he wants to rouse you out of a sensory-overloaded stupor with jolts of passion and fabulous visions. That may make him sound a wee bit Brechtian, but he’s really just an old-fashioned movie man, the kind who never lets good taste get in the way of rip-roaring entertainment.
Ms. Kidman and Mr. Jackman are initially riffing on Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart’s prickly courtship in “The African Queen” — later, as they heat up, they slip into a sexier Scarlett-and-Rhett dynamic — only Ms. Kidman really embraces the more comic and potentially embarrassing aspects of her role, giving herself over to Mr. Luhrmann and his occasionally cruel camera with a pronounced lack of vanity. Mr. Jackman gives the movie oomph; Ms. Kidman gives it a performance.
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